Author: Rachel Frances

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Trip to Olistadh Archaeological Dig

On Wednesday the 19th of June, we went on a school trip! When we parked the bus we walked about 15 mins up to a beautiful landscape full of old ruins of buildings. The first thing we did was get introduced to our tour guides, and then sorted into groups. They took us around the whole area and showed us everything they had been doing. We got to clean things we found in the dirt, guessing what the old things used to do, digging in the ground, it was so much fun. Hannah found a big piece from an old pot and Jacob found some clay pipe.  We learnt lots of things and it was really interesting. Then we headed down to Port Mor and got to eat our packed lunch, and then we got delicious ice cream. A really fun day!

 

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Chicken Endeavour

This year we started Endeavour, it is a independent project where you get to choose a subject to focus on and at the end we have to review it.

My Endeavour is all about chickens, I am going to be making a chicken coop, and I have already hatched chickens, polish ones which are so cute, there is also a black one which is growing really fast, it’s the biggest one.

At the end of Endeavour we have a fair, it is where everyone has a table and we get all the parents/family to come into school and we show them all of the work we have done for our Endeavour.

 

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Captain’s Meeting!

Every term at Port Ellen Primary School, we have a captain’s meeting, this is where all the houses (Orsay, Texa, Nave) split up. We each go into different classrooms in the school.

We talk about things like; clubs, the rights of children. Everyone in our school gets a say at what we do, so we ask them how they feel about it! We (Captains and Vice Captains) ask them what they think we should do at clubs. They all had some great ideas which we put toward all of the clubs happening.

Overall the meetings went really well!

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Clubs

On lunch break we run clubs! The different clubs are drawing, dodgeball, playground games, reading. The captains of the one house run them and everyone in there house is allowed to come. Every day it is a different house so that everybody gets to go to clubs. It is super fun because everyone gets to play with each other.  We enjoy the chance to run our own clubs and this links to the right to play Article 31.

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School Trip to the Isle of Jura!

On the 14th of September we went on a school trip. We went on The Banana Bus and headed to Kennacraig. As we were waiting for the ferry, we all got out of the car and had a bit of HIIT. With a cool breeze on our faces, we done squats and lunges, which was great fun. When we were on the ferry it was so beautiful, there were dark blue wavy waters, with fish all around. With a bump, we arrived at the pier. It was so fun driving with all the big bumps of the road and the massive stag everywhere. 

When we arrived at the town, the sun was shining like a fireball in the sky trying to set us on fire. When we arrived at Small Isles Primary School, they showed us where to put our stuff and where the classroom was. When we got in, we got to choose where to sit, and they were so kind they even gave up their seats for us to sit in. Not a big class, but they were all so kind. We decided to play a game… It was where you had to walk around the class and when the music stopped you had to turn around and the person beside you must tell you their name and then three facts about themselves (and vice versa). After we done that, we got into our groups that were on the board. The people in my group from the different school were: Grace and Shein. They were kind and had a lot in common with me. Shein was the same age as me and Grace was a year younger than me. We made a hilarious team name; can you guess what it was… THE GREESY BESTIES! Thirdly, we done a team quiz all about climate change and children’s rights. After that, we done a thing where we had to produce ideas to become eco-friendly. Each group produced two ideas to write to the government or Jenni Minto. We all had great ideas. Then for the main event… drum roll please! THE BEACH. We all went for a lovely walk to the beautiful beach. We all sat down and then we heard the teacher shout “The Greesy Besties please come and line up for ice cream,” a smile showed up on our whole team’s faces. We all got our ice cream and went to sit on the beach side. 

We arrived at Jura at about 10:30. It was a fun journey, and we enjoyed it. 

The school was in the middle of Jura, which was a beautiful place. 

Overall, we all had a blast and would absolutely love to go back to the Isle of Jura. 

Rachel Heads 

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Philip Reeve and Sarah Mcintyre Visit!

On the 8th of September we got a special visit from someone. They were book authors! Philip Reeve and Sarah Mcintyre came to our school and did some games, talked to us about how to write books, and also joked around with us. They wrote books together like Pugs of the Frozen North, The Legend of Kevin, and many more. We did it in the hall and they had things on the wall where it was like a quest and we had to come up with ideas to make it more exciting to travel through. They also read a bit of one of their books which we all really enjoyed listening to. They came to Islay for the Islay Book Festival. That is where lots of famous authors come to Islay for this special festival.

Over all this was a great afternoon with good fun.

 

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Australian Team Assembly

On the Monday 26th of June we got a visit to our school. This year the Fly Fishing competition is happening on Islay this year! The Australian team came to our to talk to us all about Australia. They talked about what types of animals there was, there was stuff like spiders and poisonous snakes, where everyone came from and everyones names. This was the women’s Australian team that came to our school.

It was really fun to hear people with different accents from us because we usually hear the same accents everyday. It was amazing to see these people and we all really enjoyed it.

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Highland Dancing

 

In Scotland, there is a very popular type of dance called Highland Dancing. It is unique but can also be difficult. Every single dance in all of Highland Dancing must be danced to bagpipes because it is traditional to dance to it. There were 2 competitions a few weeks ago, one of them was Tarbert, and the other one was Erskin. There were lots of dancers there and they were all amazing at dancing. When they jumped up and down it was as if their kilts were waves coming in from the ocean. 

In Islay there are quite a lot of dancers. Every year, we have Feis, it is a festival on Islay where thousands of people come over to see distilleries, they get to do whisky tasting and there is lots of traditional music as well. Because there were so many dancers (all of them were mostly from the mainland) it was quite hard to focus when dancing because of the amount of people. There are 4 categories, Highland, National, Jig and Hornpipe. All the dancers do different dances in groups together at Feis and it is lots of fun. At the competitions we just go up on front of the judges, then they will mark you as you are dancing, and then you will get medals at the end. 

  

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Health Afternoon

On Thursday 18th May we had a Health Afternoon. It was where parents came into school to do things like Orienteering, Coastguard talk, Baby Massage, and more. All the students went into teams had to work around all of the activities. It was so fun because we got to find out facts as well as activities. Every group had a leader in it who was the oldest person. It was great fun! Even though we got quite wet, we still had a great day.

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Endeavour Cake Decorating

 

What is Endeavour?

Every term, we get to pick a project to do. It needs to be new learning, ambitious and independent, those are the key things. Since it is a big project, we get to work on it for a while. After the end of all the Endeavour time we have a fair. If some of us had made stuff, we would get to sell it to the parents who decide to come into school.  

For my Endeavour I decided to do baking and cake decorating. I will learn how to make flowers, people, and different shapes to go on top of cakes. Since I’ve never worked with fondant, I will learn how to do it. So far, I have made cupcakes and I’m in the middle of making people out of fondant. I’m really wanting to make a big cake with flowers on top to challenge myself.   

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The Archeological Roundhouse Find!

Outside of our school  there is an Archeological dig happening because the new distillery is going up there and they need to check for ancient remains before they can build. When they are digging they are trying to find different colours of ground and put flags on that spot that was a different color.  This tells them something was there, like a post.

A few people have come over to Islay to come and do this Archeological dig. They have been here for a while digging up mostly every day for a few weeks. There have been quite a lot of things they have found. We met with them in the playground and saw all the things that they had found like bits of pottery and flint. They were digging and they found lots of big rocks in the ground in a circle.  Turns out there was a Round House underneath the ground, right next to our school, which is really exciting!  They know this because there is evidence of posts from a building and a ditch and a circle of stones to mark out the site.

 

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Sorcha’s Winning Fish!!!

Sorcha won the Marine Design a fish Competition. She drew a picture of a imaginary fish and won the Competition.  The fish was very colorful and creative.

First you had to draw the fish on a piece of paper. Then you need to send it in a email to the Marine Design a fish competition leaders.  Finally they pick a winner and turn the winners designs into a toy.

Here is a picture of Sorcha’s fish.

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